


Who We Are

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Comfort/Angst, Darsita, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male-Female Friendship, Missing Scene, Romance, Romantic Friendship, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl and Rosita share a drink late at night and talk about their hurts and dismays, and before they know it they’ve fallen into a sort of routine that brings them unexpectedly closer.</p>
<p>“We are who we are, and why should we want to change that.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here you are kids, my very first Daryl/Rosita fic (I had to throw in some Spencer/Rosita too come on you were expecting it I'm trash). This is set some time after Denise's death, but before Negan shows up and ruins everything. I hope you enjoy this one-shot and leave a comment telling me what you thought. :)

She doesn't expect to see him up so late.

She doesn't expect to see him at all actually.

It's late, the lights are out all across the safe zone, yet Rosita still finds it difficult to sleep. Disheartened by the tender embrace she saw pass between Abraham and Sasha by the wall earlier that day, she can't shake the looks of pure love and devotion that passed between the two, and the scene arose a negative churning feeling in her gut. So out she goes, leaving her jacket and army cap on the post by her bed and just taking an over-sized coat with a soft inside lining. It used to be Maggie's, but despite the over-sizing it doesn't fit her anymore with her growing baby bump, which Glenn smiles at sweetly and runs his fingers across, making her laugh softly whenever he does.

They're all like that, she's noticed now. They're pretty much _all_ settling down and _finding the ones they're meant to be with_ , and even starting families together in some cases.

Glenn and Maggie. Rick and Michonne. Carol and Tobin…

Abraham and Sasha.

She pulls the large coat tighter around her and walks down the dimly lit street, a light on someone's drive sensing her and flaring on as she passes. Spencer is still asleep back in her bed, snoring quietly, and she tried her hardest not to wake him when she snuck out.

It's not like she's _entirely_ alone, like Denise was implying before that _estúpido_ arrow zipped through her skull. Even without a star-crossed soulmate, she has the group, and they're basically her family now. And she has Spencer.

She's not alone. She's _not_ …

So then why does it all feel so _lonely_?

Head pounding, she decides to call it a night and head back to bed, and when she turns a corner she sees something that makes her freeze in her tracks.

Daryl Dixon is sitting there on the bottom step of the porch, cloaked in shadow cast from the wooden post and looking almost like a piece of darkness himself. Clad in black leather and dark clothing, the only visible lighter parts of him that stand out even a little are his hands and the part of his face that isn't covered by the murky bangs that hang over his eyes.

She stands on the corner of the street with her arms folded, watching him sit there hunched over, running something over in his hands. She realises what it is eventually, and feels a pang in her chest when she sees that he doesn't seem to have noticed her, because if he had he would have absolutely stopped what he was doing.

It's that knife.

Not his huge silver hunting one. The smaller one he keeps in its brown leather sheath. The one he never uses… The one he suddenly started wearing after Atlanta…

He notices her then and jumps, dropping the knife quickly into his lap and stares at her through his bangs, frozen. Like he's been caught doing something he's not supposed to be doing. Something he's _ashamed_ for people to know about.

Rosita unfolds her arms and walks over.

She stands staring down at him on the step for a while, before lowering herself and sitting next to him on the step. He shifts uncomfortably at the proximity, because it's only a small step after all, and fidgets. He's trying to cover the little knife with his larger hands and seems to be trying to wriggle it back into its sheath at his hip, but she turns and looks at him again. He freezes under her gaze and looks away guiltily.

"What're ya doin' out so late?" he grunts, voice clipped and bordering on hostile.

She doesn't take offense to his tone.

"Couldn't sleep," she offers, "So I went for a walk. You?"

His jaw is set hard and he stares down at his knees firmly.

She guesses their reasons for being out here aren't entirely different.

The handle of the knife is peeking out through his fingers but he's still gripping it so tightly, right on the blade too. She glances down and sees the sharp edge pressing into the skin of his palms, but he doesn't let go if it does hurt. He does that a lot, she realises. She's not really noticed it before, never really had a reason to, but he does do it a lot. _Touches_ it. Almost to prove to himself that it's still there, that it's not going anywhere, and she wonders what exactly this knife means to him that causes him to do that.

"…What is that?" she asks quietly, her voice low and cautious.

He winces at the question and grips the blade harder, surely hard enough to draw blood.

"That knife…" she continues, "You carry it with you everywhere, you never put it down. It must mean a lot to you for you to do that."

Giving up on covering it from her view, he unfolds his lands with a sigh and reveals it lying there on his lap, small and glimmering, the silver bright in contrast to his dark jeans. His face as crunched up almost in pain, and Rosita wants so badly to understand, because he always puts on that silent mask and never talks about his feelings.

He carries them, like he carries this knife, like he carried that girl back in Atlanta, like he carries their _group_.

"Did it belong to someone important?"

That does something to him because he flinches violently and avoids her gaze like she's poison.

He curls his fingers around the smooth handle and squeezes, gritting his teeth together and almost _shivering_.

_Someone important_.

Denise asked who'd taught her how to fight. _That's_ who taught her how to fight. _Important people_. People who _mattered_.

People who were long gone now.

"It was…" he mumbles, "…It was hers… … _Beth's_."

_Beth_.

Beth Greene. Maggie's sister. The girl she'd seen, the _shell_ of the girl, hanging limp from his arms when they all came out of the hospital. Blood stained across her face and in her blonde hair, and the damp of tears splashed against her cheeks from Daryl's heaving sobs.

Rosita senses there's something more in his answer, in the way he said her name, almost like a promise. Like he owed her something, a debt he'd never be able to pay, even if she was still alive. Like she'd _taught_ him something, and he was trying to hold onto her teachings so desperately but he didn't know how.

So it was killing him.

_A lot of people taught me a lot of things_.

Watching the dying flame simmering in his eyes as he stares at the knife, Rosita feels another pang in her chest and feels like she should look away. Like she's witnessing something impossibly intimate and the sight isn't for her or for anyone else.

Shifting his other hand, he reaches for something by his leg and picks it up.

It's a flask.

The powerful scent of alcohol pours into the air as he flips open the lid and tips his head back to swallow a gulp of it. She watches him swallow it and let out a gravelly sigh before lowering it to rest atop of his knee. Without looking at her, he lifts it and offers it her, wordlessly. She stares at the flash with faded shine and bites on the inside of her cheek, remembers the way Abraham's eyes glittered as he looked at Sasha, then takes it and swallows a few violent gulps herself.

They sit like that for a while in silence.

_Someone important._

"What was she like?" Rosita asks finally, twirling the lid of the flask with her forefinger.

Daryl looks like he's been slapped.

He looks like he wants to say a lot of things, like there are so many things he can say about Beth Greene, but she knows he's not the best with words, so he settles with just a few that somehow hold the weight of worlds within them.

"…She was good."

There are a lot of implications in those three words, almost holding the same weight of three _other_ certain words.

_Good_.

_Are there people like that anymore?_ she sometimes thinks to herself. _They_ certainly aren't good people anymore, and they've not come across anyone else that would fit into that category. And Daryl Dixon seems like the last person that would describe someone with that word…

But still. He uses it to describe her, using it not just like he cares for her, but like he _admires_ her.

_Beth_.

"Good…" she echoes, quietly, softly, and Daryl's face wrenches in pain again.

"They're always the first to go," he says bitterly then, and takes the flask back from her, his movement interestingly a lot less hostile than his tone.

"Not always."

He snorts cruelly.

Rosita's expression hardens and she stares at him, willing him to dare look back at her.

There aren't a lot of good people left anymore, but somehow, she thinks that if Daryl saw Beth as one of them… She thinks Beth might have seen _him_ as one too.

Because he _is_.

He might try to hide it, might mask it was aggression and swearing and grime, but really… he's probably one of the best men left on the planet.

" _You're_ good," she says, and he snorts again.

He glances at her from under his oily bangs and his eyes are laced with a laughing menace. Because he genuinely doesn't believe that, and that probably has something to do with the blood in Beth's blonde hair, and the tiny knife laying in his lap.

"Rick thinks that," she strains, "So does Carol, so do _I_ … _She_ would-"

"Stop."

His voice is smaller now, and the laughing menace in his eyes has melted away into a flicker of solitude, and she breathes out slowly at the sight.

"Please," he murmurs, "…Don't."

She recognises that tone.

He uses it a lot now, whenever someone tries to talk to him, console him, or even try to make him feel better. He whispers it like he doesn't believe he _deserves_ words like that. Like he's punishing himself for all the things that aren't even his fault. Even though all he does every day is fight to protect them.

Burdened guardián ángel, such a weight pressing on his tattered leather wings that they've gone a dull green from the pressing.

Lifting her hand, she places it over his that are cradling the knife and squeezes lightly.

He winces at the touch and closes his eyes, like a subdued animal, and her brows quiver. She thinks of Denise without Tara, of Glenn without Maggie… Her without Abraham, and her heart throbs.

They're not that different, him and her.

They aren't the same, but there's a frequency of hurt that they both tune into, a shared loneliness, and as they sit there on the porch step, her hand lightly clasping his on top of the knife, she feels the tears welling up in her eyes.

But she can't cry. She's done enough crying. She _hates_ crying.

"When we were out there," she says, "After Terminus. When we were looking for her… I saw the way you were. You were confident that we'd find her, that we'd all be okay, that _she'd_ be okay. You believed in something, and I might not understand exactly what that was… But. I know that it must've been something worth believing in. _She_ must have been worth believing in."

He opens his eyes and looks at her like a broken animal.

"Things can matter again, Daryl." she says with traces of a sad smile, "It can get better, believe me. It can. All you have to do is try."

"I _am_ tryin'. All I ever fuckin' _do_ is try, an' look where the fuck it's _got_ me."

"I know… But you have to _keep_ trying, and eventually, some day in the future… It stops hurting so much."

Pain doesn't go away completely, but you do learn to accustom yourself to it so it doesn't eat you from the inside out. You learn to bury it and use it as fuel, because a loss is a lesson, and that's what _she_ was doing, what Beth was doing.

She was teaching him something, and he was finally starting to understand it before he shoved it away and tried to run. Run from what he'd started to see. And then she did the worst possible thing, because it wasn't even her fault.

She died.

Rosita gives his hand another tight squeeze before withdrawing it and rising to make her leave, but he grabs her elbow lightly and stops her. He fidgets under her confused gaze and bites the inside of his cheek.

"…You too," he says finally, his voice quiet and awkward, "You should keep tryin' too… Yer hurt over Abraham, I know… _But things get better_."

At his words, she finds that she smiles properly for what feels like the first time in ages, and leans down to plant a lingering kiss on his brow.

_You're good, Daryl Dixon._

_You are._

_You're just too afraid to let yourself see it._

She leaves him there on the porch with the knife and his flask and makes her way back to her bed where Spencer is still sleeping. Before she climbs under the covers, she stares down at his sleeping face and feels another smile tugging at her lips.

He shifts and rubs his face against the pillow, and she _does_ smile then, and crawls into the nest of sheets with him.

_And maybe I can be good too_.

.

.

It's turned into a sort of routine, him and her.

They hadn't meant it to, but nearly every night, when the rest of the zone is asleep, they meet in the dark and share a drink.

The place changes from time to time, as does the amount of alcohol they consume because there's really not a lot in that one small flask, but they always talk. Daryl talks a lot more when he's got a drink in his system, she comes to discover, when they're sat on a low wall by the church one night, a bottle of Jack Daniel's on the ledge between them. Something about the liquor and the lack of harsh sunlight on his back awakens conversations in him, and he tells her things.

Little things, one by one. Things about himself, about his life before the turn, the brother that was called Merle, things like that.

He tells her about Beth sometimes too, when he doesn't look like he's going to roll into a ball and wail. He talks about the girl fondly, a rare smile creeping onto his face as he does, and he retells some of the stories that involve her and him out there together in the wilderness. They all lived in a prison before Alexandria, that she knew, and he and Beth escaped together and spent several short months together before she was snatched away by the people of the hospital.

She used to sing to him, he tells her one night, when they're on her porch like the first night. And poems, she liked those too. He did as well, or he did when she recited them, and Rosita finds herself smiling at that.

Daryl Dixon listening to a girl with a sunny and mellow personality as she read poetry and sung to him.

Her Mamá used to like singing, she tells him. Before she died, she'd always be humming a tune as she stood by the stove stirring a pot, Rosita and her brothers sat at her feet listening. Daryl flashes a ghost of a smile at that, and then awkwardly prompts her to tell him more.

She's not used to talking about her life before the turn, and _certainly_ not her life before the army training…

But she's willing to try. So she tells him things as well. How she liked dancing, about her uncle's paintings, her brothers and their wild adventures that always ended in scrapes, and the embarrassingly perfect wedding she dreamed of having since she was only a small niña.

Little things, one by one.

.

.

They've been doing it for a while now, their nightly meetings and talks accompanied by the comforting tang of alcohol, and people are starting to notice the level of familiarity they've gained in the recent weeks.

Spencer comes into the kitchen one morning with his hair still ruffled from sleep, and watches her ferret around in the cupboard for some canned fruit. He stands in the doorway, his navy shirt creased and dropping slightly down his collarbone, and he smiles when she meets his eyes from across the room. She sees the dried food stain just below his breast on the shirt and doesn't even try to hide her knowing smirk when she realises who's been snacking on the homemade stroganoff in the night when no one's out to catch him.

"Rosita…" he says quietly, and she crosses the kitchen in a few long strides and wraps her arms around his neck.

He's surprised by the action, her displays of affection towards him being rare or either strictly reserved for the bedroom, but he doesn't complain.

He winds his arms around her waist and holds her tight, rocking her slightly in his warm embrace. When she pulls back to look at him, his eyes are bright with drowsy delight, and she strokes her thumb across the light stubble on his jaw.

"What was that for?" he asks, genuinely surprised.

She shakes her head, smile still present and warming her expression, and cocks her head with a fiery wink, but her voice holds a strong amount of fondness that she doesn't usually direct at him blatantly.

"Just didn't want you to think I was taking you for granted."

_So you_ know _I don't want to lose you, that you're_ not _just a rebound, that you know you're_ important _to me._

_You're someone important._

You might lose the people that are important to you, and it'll hurt like hell, but finding _new_ people to mean something to you helps ease the misery. Helps soften the blow and rebuild the chunks of your heart that have been savagely ripped out.

He grins lazily and plants a quick peck on her lips, before snuggling his face back into her shoulder and holding her for a moment.

They try to make a pie together later when he's had a shower—well really he's the one doing most of the work and she's just passing the ingredients—and at one point he stops and just looks at her with a curious expression. She doesn't know what to make of it before he lifts the faded army cap from her head and places it on his own head, and asks the question.

"So what's Daryl Dixon like underneath all the bite and bark?"

She nearly drops the packet of flour she's holding.

Oddly enough, there's no bitter implication in his tone, and he isn't looking at her with questioning or accusing eyes. He's not looking at her at all actually, his eyes completely focused on layering the pastry on top of the pie's contents.

He glances up when she doesn't answer and flashes a tiny grin, his eyes shadowed by her hat tilting to the side.

"I _have_ noticed you leaving in the middle of the night," he says, oddly amused for some reason, "And I _have_ seen the two of you together. I saw when I went out to talk to Rick once."

"It's not-"

He gives her a knowing smile and she stops mid-sentence, but again there's no cruelty in that smile.

She's not lying, this thing between her and Daryl _isn't_ like that, but now she senses that Spencer might actually know that… and maybe…

Maybe he just wants to know what the closed off grumpy redneck has hiding underneath that hostile cape, and what it is about him that draws Rosita to him.

There are plenty of people in the safe zone, plenty she could seek out and drink with if she wanted a friend, but she's chosen _Daryl_ , and Spencer's a pretty perceptive guy so he _knows_ there must be a reason for that.

He knows _her_.

"Daryl is… surprising." she admits.

" _Surprising_ , huh?"

"Yeah," she nods, passing him the fork to make tiny marked presses on the pastry, "He's very unexpected. He's different to how I thought he'd be."

"In what way?"

_Ya say who you are_ now _, not who ya used to be_ , he'd said once. Something he'd had told to him, and it's right.

Whoever said that, and Rosita can guess who, was right.

_You say who you are, you make the choice, and it's not up to anyone else to define what you are. It's down to you. Only you._

_We are who we are, and why should we want to change that?_

"I think he needs a little kick-start," she settles for, "He's trying, but he's not very good at doing it alone, so I'm helping him. And he's helping _me_ , in a way. We're _both_ trying."

Spencer doesn't need to ask what they're trying to do, because he already knows. _He's_ trying too, and she's helping him do that too.

They're all helping each _other_ , they just have to sit down with a drink and realise that, because they fought for this place and they won it, and they're here together. They survive together, it's how they kept breathing, and sometimes it's just harder to see that when you lose some of the people that are important to you.

She kisses the side of his mouth gently and watches him stab the center of the pie to create some air holes to put it in the oven.

.

.

Abraham and Sasha are getting married.

It's nothing huge, because let's face it they're in the apocalypse, and they might have this safe zone and a church with a priest, but there aren't exactly any bridal gowns or _lujoso_ suits lying around. But they still want to do it right. Glenn and Maggie too, and maybe even Rick and Michonne too later on down the line. So, unable to bear all the fuss and the eyes Abraham keeps making at his wife-to-be, Rosita volunteers to go on a run for supplies for the makeshift wedding Tara is practically jumping with joy at.

Daryl opts to come with her.

She tries not to think of the last time they went on a supply run together, one more in their party that time, and follows behind him to the front of Alexandria. They leave on the back of his bike and drive out of the safe zone gates down the winding dusty roads.

One hand hanging onto Daryl, Rosita lifts the other to secure her cap in place, and despite the heaviness on her heart she was feeling at seeing Abraham and Sasha earlier… The weight seems to have lifted a little.

The sun was just coming up when they left, and the pink and light blues paint the sky like a watercolour canvas, and Rosita thinks of the sketches and paintings in her uncle's studio. The splashes of colour dotted around the room filling the once plain two-dimensional papers with life.

That's what the sky looks like now.

It looks like life.

Grinning blatantly, she plants her hands on the back of Daryl's shoulders and begins to lift herself, and he panics slightly at her movements. She thinks he yells something about sitting put over the billowing wind, but it gets swallowed by the breeze. She places one boot on the engine and then slowly the other, and lifts herself up with the support of Daryl's shoulders so that she's standing on the bike.

_Brash and reckless Rosita_ , they used to call her when she was growing up. Wild and spitfire, all risks and no thinking of the consequences. She stands on the back of the bike with her hands on Daryl's back, ponytail whipping in the wind, and breathes a laugh.

Daryl seems to have stopped panicking that she's going to fall off, but there's a tension in his shoulders as they fly down the roads, a worry that's worked into his back like knotted muscles. Glancing down at the back of his head, long hair pushed backward by the wind, and she gives his shoulders a firm squeeze.

_It can get better. It can._

_All you have to do is try._

Ironically, they find a dress store.

It's on the outskirts of a town they've already made a sweep of lots of times by now, but somehow they've never noticed it. Daryl taps the back of his fist against the entrance and opens the door, crossbow cocked and aimed at the doorway, and they listen. When no sound emerges, he gestures her on with his fingers and she walks in slowly with her rifle pointed.

The inside of the shop is surprisingly well-lit, and it would look like an ordinary shop if not for the ripped furniture, turned over tables, smashed glass…

Okay, it doesn't look ordinary at all.

Dirt and dried blood stains the floors and walls, and a lot of the clothes look to have been looted a long time ago. Rosita creeps across the room to the desk, cash register that's been robbed (expectedly), and stops at the door to the back office. Daryl isn't far behind, raising a finger to his lips and giving the door a loud tap.

Like before, so sounds are heard, so he grips the handle with his large hand and slowly turns it open.

Inside the office is darker, no light shining in through the bordered up windows, and Rosita fumbles for the flashlight she brought in her jacket pocket. Flicking the switch, she shines it around the small office and feels Daryl breathing by her neck. The room is empty, but Daryl still cautiously creeps across to the bordered up window and rips the planks of wood off, spilling vivid yellow light into the office.

The spectacle on the floor becomes visible then, and Rosita's heartbeat quickens in a peculiar manner.

On the floor, amongst a pile of somewhat clean clothes, is a still relatively intact wedding gown.

Her and Daryl stare down at it, the same thought probably running through their heads, and then they lock gazes. He nods slightly and she returns the gesture, striding towards the pile and leaning down to pick the dress up.

It's a lovely piece of clothing, long sleeved and slim fitted, a little bit faded and torn in places, but they can probably fix it up. It looks about Sasha's size, and honestly, Rosita doesn't think she'll complain if they ride up to the gates with something like this in their possession.

Imagining Sasha walking down the church aisle wearing this, with a dazzling smile lighting up her face as she takes Abraham's arm at the alter, makes Rosita's chest clench, and she grips the silken fabric hard. Daryl notices the shielded look on her face and the hard set of her jaw as she holds the dress, and seems to consider something for a moment. Eventually, he clears his throat loudly, making her look up from under her army hat and stare at him with slowly blurring eyes.

"You, uh…" he mutters awkwardly, "Ya can try it on… If ya want. Sasha won't mind."

She blinks, a flush of warmth flooding into her chest.

A real wedding dress, everything she ever dreamed of as a child, sitting by her Mamá's feet in the kitchen listening to her sing traditional antiguo wedding songs.

_Ahí viene la novia,  
_ _All dressed in white._

She shakes the memory away and loosens her grip on the dress, and suddenly Daryl's standing a lot closer to her than he was before.

He stares at the tears welling in her eyes and raises his hand to gently lift her cap to see her face more clearly.

She doesn't want something borrowed. She doesn't want to be the second choice. And he understands.

Leaning down and placing his bow on the ground, she looks at him with puzzlement painting her features, and he takes the dress from her hold and places that on the floor too. She's even more surprised when he gracelessly holds out his hand and waits for her to take it, sudden doubt blooming in his expression, and then she understands what it is he's doing.

He's asking if she wants to dance.

If she won't wear the dress, will she dance instead?

When was the last time she danced? Rosita can't remember, but it must have been a _long_ time ago, perhaps even all the way back before she joined army training. And then here's Daryl Dixon. Quiet, lonely Daryl Dixon, holding his hand out for her to take, _trying_ , like Beth and his brother would want him to…

He's trying, she's made him do that, even if it is only something like that, but he's _trying_.

This is the least _she_ can do.

She smiles through a teary expression and places her hand in his, squeezing firmly like she always does when she touches him, only this time it feels different to all those other times. The worry in his eyes vanish when she does that and he almost gives a tiny smirk, but then he squirms and stands limply with her hand clasped in his, and Rosita reaches another realisation.

He doesn't know how to dance.

Her chest swells.

He asked her, knowing full well it would mean something to her, because she told him all those little things whilst they were drinking from that flask, but he has no idea how to do it.

That simple act of selflessness makes her eyes glimmer, and she smiles helplessly.

_He's surprising_.

She reaches down and takes his other hand, and places it on her side, before planting her other hand on his shoulder and giving the hand that's clasped in hers another reassuring squeeze. He glances across at their joined hands and swallows firmly, and she gives him a tiny smile.

And then she moves her feet.

He follows her lead clumsily, feet treading in the wrong places a lot and sometimes on hers, but it's okay. It's more than okay. It's _better_.

Things can get better.

They _can_.

He seems to be getting the hang of it, his steps becoming more confident and rhythmic, and she pulls him in close for a sort of hug whilst they're swaying from side to side.

"You're good," she whispers, and he tenses like he did the first time she said it.

"Don't," he breathes back, like he's pained by the words.

Her arm is around his neck now and she's pressed her chin against his shoulder, and the strong smell of leather and smoke is tickling her nostrils, but she breathes it in. "You are," she stresses, "You are, Daryl. You have to believe that."

"…I can't."

"Why not?"

His hand snakes from her side to hold the lower part of her back, and he rubs gentle circles there. He's so unbelievingly gentle for someone who looks so rough and fierce, he's so kind, he's so _good_.

"Because _she's_ good," he says into her ear with a cracked voice, "I ain't like her, I ain't like-"

"You _are_."

She pulls back and looks up at him with hard eyes and a set jaw. His eyes are glimmering from beneath his bangs and she lifts a hand and pushes some hair out of his face.

"Even if you don't believe it… _I_ believe it. I _know_ you are… And I think she did too."

He whimpers. Honest to god, full on _whimpers_ , and buries his face into her neck.

"Not who you were, remember?" she echoes him echoing Beth's words, "Who you _are_. Who we all are, that's what matters. And what you are, is good. You're a good man."

He might not believe it now, but she's going to make sure he does believe it eventually. She'll make him see what she and everyone else sees.

He _started_ to see, but then a bullet through a blonde flicker of light blinded him and made him revert back to his self-loathing self. The light might've gone out now, but when a bulb goes out, you just have to go find another one. Find another flame, another whisper of hope. He needs to try, because if he doesn't… there really will be nothing else to live for.

His exhale of breath against her neck almost sounds like a smile, and she rubs the faded wings that cover his shoulder blades smoothly.

"Who we are, huh?"


End file.
